


The Fallen Naruto Shippuden: Lore

by Emocean



Category: Naruto
Genre: Introspection, Meta
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-12
Updated: 2018-04-30
Packaged: 2019-03-29 03:42:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 9,773
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13918644
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Emocean/pseuds/Emocean
Summary: — an educational class regarding the flaws and forts of Naruto and Naruto Shippuden, brought to you by the founders of Konohagakure who'd been there from the beginning, and also Izuna Uchiha (who didn't deserve to die without any character development, only having roughly ten lines, just to advance Madara's backstory). Cheers!





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So here's a loose introspection on Naruto and all that concerns the series, brought to you by the characters who'd know the ways and wiles of the world better than everybody else! —They'd lived through the brunt of it and invented the modern system! (Excluding Izuna, who, in fact, died. But he's alive here because, well… They're all dead now, anyway, so uh—)
> 
> Updates will potentially be erratic as I come to new revelations or am inspired by new meta I read. May (will*) be slightly (super*) opinionated. Love me my good headcanons, y'all. Credit will be given where credit is due.
> 
> Loosely inspired by Akatsuki FanFiction Writing Workshop by dearrobin. There will be OOC behavior, but for Izuna it isn't quite OOC since he'd never been developed in the first place. Which works out nicely in a way, because no matter how I bend him here, it can't be considered OOC. Nice.

**The Introduction: Schedules**

Izuna entered the classroom with long strides. There were high school girls in there, a few snot-nosed boys, and also a gangly blond whiskered teen trying to mesh in with the children by wearing huge swirly glasses and a fake mustache — an idiot who he dutifully ignored. Their chatter faded to silence in what must have been reverence since he was just that fucking cool, walking in the classroom in his Uchiha Glory from the shadows or whatever. Absolutely fucking stunning.

He rolled down the overhead projector screen. "Everybody, be quiet."

No one had even been talking.

But kids did like to talk when they got over their initial wonder at the splendor of his face and general presence, so this was for good measure, Izuna mused. "Welcome to this seminar, titled: The Fallen Naruto Shippuden. I'm your homeroom teacher, Izuna Uchih—if you touch my  _fucking_  bandages I'll slice your fingers off."

The teen hastily retracted her hand from where it'd been reaching toward Izuna's face. She giggled what sounded like a very soft "feisty!" and then purred like she was a cat or something, leaping back into her seat.

Izuna cursed his glorious bishōnen face for the nth time. He hated kids. "Keep your paws to yourselves and stay in your seat unless given permission to move. If you rebel, you'll be expelled," he informed them, crossing his arms.

The class started (rightfully, but annoyingly) giggling in awe of his awesomely handsome Uchiha-ness. (Aside from the whiskered phony.) The girl from before was still purring. He found himself just as hot as they did, so he couldn't blame them.

He sighed again. "I'm your homeroom teacher, Izuna Uchiha," said Izuna Uchiha, gesturing over to the board where his name, Izuna Uchiha, was written:  _Izuna Uchiha_ — in red chalk. "You're sitting in Class Zero, otherwise known as _the introduction_. The other teachers for today are my powerful older brother, Madara Uchiha, his  _friend_  or whatever, Hashirama Senju, and that  _filthy_  fucking behemoth." He pulled a folded paper out of nowhere since his Uchiha Outfit™ didn't have any pockets and proceeded to unfold it with a noncommittal expression. It was titled  _Schedule_.

"Wait, there's gonna be a behemoth teaching us?" a girl asked fearfully.

Izuna faced her directly and observed her with all two of his available senses (hearing and smelling) from the front of the room in absolute silence. (She smelled like fermented potatoes.)

She stared back with wide watery eyes.

"Yes," he answered.

Ignoring the frightened scream that pierced throughout the room was easy, considering that he'd screamed every night in his dreams when he woke up from death one day to discover that he was being forced to teach a class of high schoolers about the manga that did him so dirty. Also he was still blind and injured while everyone else got to have full recovery when they were revived, for whatever reason. What the heck was that, honestly?

Izuna slid the schedule for today under the overhead.

It read:

_Introduction: Izuna Uchiha. the Sexiest Man Alive_

(The words "the Sexiest Man Alive" were written messily at the end in red ink.)

_Class One: Main and Exceedingly Relevant Characters — Hashirama Senju._

_Class Two: Flaws pertinent to the endgame — Tobirama Senju. bastard FUCKING behemoth!_

(There was a slit through Tobirama's name. It and the substituting description were also both scrawled in red, super illegibly, almost as if the writer was, like, blind or something. There were also a lot of exclamation points.)

_Class Three: Forts of the series — Izuna Uchiha. the Sexiest Man Alive._

_Class Four: Ships — Madara Uchiha._

_Class Five: The Uchiha Clan — Hashirama Senju._  (The words "Hashirama Senju" were, in fact, crossed out—to be rewritten at the end, after:)  _AND_ _how they were fucking mistreated by everybody, including the author of this godforsaken series. Class by Hashirama Senju._

_Further classes, miscellaneous subjects and the like: Interludes; TBA_

Various sighs of relief echoed through the room. "It's only Tobirama…" the girl from before mumbled.

Izuna uncapped his pen and scribbled the poop emoji by Tobirama's crossed out name for good measure, and then faced the class. "As we're all well aware by now, the ending of  _Naruto Shippuden_  was a disaster. All of the readers, myself included, were heavily disappointed by it and—"

A hand shot up.

"…What."

"How'd you write that when you've got no eyes, datteb—… d…dude." The gangly teen nervously held up a gang sign or whatever as he said 'dude'. Izuna couldn't see it.

The high school girls in the desks around the teen's swooned at his iconic main character voice. Izuna belatedly noticed that they were all dressed identically in a school that didn't have a dress code or uniform, so they were probably in cosplay or something. He couldn't sense it clearly either. If he could, though, he'd notice the Naruto Fanclub buttons pinned to the front of their raggedy orange jackets. Then he'd fire their asses up—so maybe it was better that he was blind.

He crossed his arms, addressing the teen. "Do you write with your eyes or with your hands?"

"Uh…  _okay_ , I write with my hands," the teen admitted, frowning. "But then how'd you read the manga, 'ttebayo? With your hands?"

"Get the fuck out of my classroom, Uzumaki."

"It's not yours, you're dead."

"OUT!"

"Weird blind old guy…" Uzumaki muttered, but he got up without a fight.

He had to be like eighteen, Izuna surmised. One ass cheek in the loud-but-passionate-brat stage of his life that had made up the core of his personality for the better half of the series, and the other planted in the latter era where he magically hits a 180° transformation and becomes a giant gaping asshole when dealing with his own son for virtually no reason whatsoever. This must have been the interluding period. It was awfully convient for Izuna, though, so he muttered a quiet thanks to his lord and savior Masashi Kishimoto.

Laughter exploded from almost everyone except for the Uzumaki, Naruto, who was too busy slinking out of the door in a way Izuna considered deserving of a filthy Uzumaki. Naruto's fanclub was also an exception to the tittering, sulking as their idol left the room. Izuna closed the door behind him. He never did support what had apparently become Konohagakūre. Disgusting.

"As I was saying, the ending of  _Naruto_  was pretty bad, leaving a lot of holes left unfilled, a lot of promises abandoned, and a lot of characters disappointed. Or dead. Unfairly. Me."

"You've been dead for a while, though," some snot-nosed kid pointed out.

"Shut up," Izuna said wisely.

"O—Okay, th…thanks," the kid said, because talking to Izuna was a blessing,  _not_ because he was terrified to the point of pissing his seat, which he did, and everybody smelt it.

Izuna flashed a mildly irked and extremely weary but also very attractive bishōnen smile. He cleared his throat and said: "In any case, in this educational experience for the lot of you, you'll be learning the kinks and quirks of Naruto." (A few kids wheezed when he said 'kinks' because teens just tend to find innuendos to be the funniest jokes in the universe. Izuna pinched the bridge of his nose but kept on keeping on.) "The timeline was a wreck in general, as is the titular character's family tree, but I'll let Senju explain that since it mostly concerns the timing of his offspring. Which really leaves nothing to explain because it's just a clusterfuck, but again, that's his problem."

A girl raised her hand, asking in a snotty tone of voice, "What will be taught in each class?" Her raised hand was actually a raised index finger, the pinky also a bit high because she was trying to be proper, but it looked more like a pseudo rock star sign.

"Did I call on you?" Izuna asked, facing where her voice came from.

She was silent for a few moments, shot down, and then there came a soft "oh!" because someone had just pinched her — he felt it — before she finally responded, as he wasn't the type to ask rhetorical questions. "No… Sorry."

Izuna pulled a few more papers out of virtually nowhere with finesse. After shuffling through them for a few moments, miming the action of reading them despite the fact that he had no eyes to read with, he faced the class again.

"In Class One, you'll be taught the fortes and fallacies of all your favorite characters. And by all, I mean, probably like two. Or whatever. There are cliché faves, such as Itachi Uchiha, Kakashi Hatake, the behemoth, et cetera, but because the author of this—ahem,  _class_ , might not share favorites with you, don't expect all your popular or obscure favorites to get a chance at the limelight." He brought the papers closer to his face, furrowing his brows at them attentively. "The main characters are really obvious, but they'll be reflected upon too. Really, this is just world-building, or maybe world-establishment, course. You're a better writer when you're well versed with what you're writing about, so that's what we'll be going over," he said. "Knowing the components of a good character will also help you make OCs, so cheer to that."

Crickets.

No one cheered to that.

Izuna sighed and looked up from his paper. "Itachi will be shined upon, though."

The class roared.

If he had eyes, he'd have seen the Itachi Fanclub cheering in the back in their cheap Akatsuki cloaks and painted faces, but he didn't have eyes, and also he didn't really want to deal with them more than need be so he didn't try to sense for them either. Which was irresponsible of him since a few were waiting for a good opportunity to throw eggs at him, but whatever.

He cleared his throat and continued in the midst of the celebration:

"Class Two will address flaws pertinent to the endgame of the series. I'm sure you're all very upset with  _how_  it went down, if not with the very presence of romantic relationships or with the specific ships themselves, but this isn't about the romantic factor. Frankly, there is a lot to be addressed; this series was about friendship, found family, never giving up, et cetera, so it sucks that everything was washed away in favor of two negligent marriages that bore children who have badly excused estranged relationships with their fathers—who, being orphans, should know better—but also it's what all these pieces of shit deserve as a unit for killing my clan and then failing to avenge them in full, so what the fuck ever."

Somewhere in the shadows of the class, a nineteen year old man hidden under Transformation Technique sneezed.

Izuna tsked in the general direction of that particular shadow because, yes, he was mad at Sasuke too. _You get chased around for five years and lose an arm and suddenly think it's okay to abandon justice for your dead family? Despicable._ "But we'll make the most of it for the memories that were very, como di se,  _sugoi_ ," he said bitterly, a bitter expression on his face.

A few girls swooned at his excellent demonstration of trilingual proficiency. He was just so fucking incredible.

He crossed his arms, crinkling up the papers in his hand, and leaned back against the desk in a way that very hip and cool. "I will be going in depth over the fortes of the series, in Class Three.  _Naruto_ was, in fact, excellent at dealing with friendships and all the like. When someone says it's flawed, unless they're talking about the general treatment of women who are constantly slept on, then they're usually referring to the very last arc or chapter, because everything beforehand was fucking ingenious. Most of you brats thought that Tobi was  _me_ , and the other half thought he was Kagami. ALL of you thought he was my brother Madara. Only the rest figured out that it was Obito. When Lee dropped those weights, every single one of you lost your shit. Orochimaru gave you shivers. Jiraiya's death had you all tearing up. Itachi's backstory had you shits  _sobbing_ —and I know because I cried too," Izuna quipped. " _Naruto_  was glorious. It was an enigma, a mysterious piece of art. It was glorious for a number of reasons, and we'll be going over that too."

The class was pin-drop silent as he explained. Some kids were snoring in the back. Three girls clapped politely when he finished, and the rest of the class booed—because no matter how fucking insanely awesome  _Naruto_  and the sequel,  _Naruto Shippuden_ , had been, they were forever going to hold it in their hearts that the relationships that they spent years being invested in weren't made canon. (e.g: Naruto x Sasuke or Sakura, Shino x The Recognition He Deserves, Sasuke x Comfort and Peace, Kurenai x Justice, Hinata x Kiba probably, and all the other little things.)

Understandable, because a wise man (Itachi Uchiha) once said: "We don't know what kind of people [i.e. manga] we truly are until the moment before our deaths."

Everything does tend to tie together at the end. People then have the right to decide whether they'd rather appreciate the journey or the final destination. It leaves everything in the eye of the beholder.

But Izuna didn't even want to be here in the first place, so he didn't care.

"Fourth will be ships. This is in reference to romantic relationships." Cue a very acute mixture of applause and jeers. Touchy. "You're probably familiar with them as SasuSaku, NaruHina, NaruSaku, KibaHina, whatever else, NaruSasu, what the fuck ever else. It doesn't matter whether you support it or not, because you—along with Madara—be discussing the pros and cons of the canonical ships and comparing and contrasting them to their equally popular however non-canon counterparts anyway. You'll be relating them to their actual relevance to the plot of the story, and will view each relationship from both sides, mutually. Introspection."

Out of nowhere, totally uncalled for, a girl in the Naruto Fanclub threw an egg at another girl, also in the Naruto Fanclub. "FUCKING NARUSAKU FOREVER!" she screeched. There was a whole carton under her arm.

Izuna's just about had it with this stupid ass class. "What the fuck?"

The girl now covered in egg yolk snatched toilet paper from out of under her desk or some shit, yelling, "Shut the hell up, bum ass bitch! Long live NaruSasu!"

"NaruSaku is international!"

"Okay, and? So's NaruSasu? NaruSasu outsold, outfought, outperformed, outdanced, outbreathed—"

"LMAOOO!" the 'bum ass bitch' laughed. It was pronounced something like  _luh-may-oh_  but for the sake of honoring her intents of literally saying the acronym instead of just laughing, it'll be presented as LMAO. She said it twice. "LMAO! Listen here  _Becky_ , NaruSaku is the king of all ships that won  _six_  daes—"

"My name is Kaijin, one. Two… listen, babe… your fave is problematic. Sakura hits Naruto. It's cancelled."

"Hey, one, you _blind_? Your faves get in fights all the time. Two, this is  _Naruto_. Are you  _blind_?"

Izuna took offense to that. But instead of slitting her throat, he slapped his face into his hands and went to sit behind his desk. "I can't stand this," he muttered, direly wanting to take a shot. He didn't even  _like_  alcohol, he was just tired as hell of this class.

Kaijin snarled. "Itachi, the king of this entire series,  _invented_  NaruSasu with his bare  _eyes_."

The Naruto Fanclub had a mini-civil war thing in the middle of class, where NaruSakus and NaruSasus split down the middle, going for each others throat. They got their wigs torn out, crying things like, "NaruSaku make an all-kill on the shipping chart!" or strange things like "Only NaruSasu biases interact!" Whatever that was supposed to mean.

The Naruto fans were everywhere. They were wild. When they ran out of eggs and toilet paper, Kaijin ran out of the room crying and the other girl was passed out, slumped under a crater in the wall where she'd been nailed with a roll of TP. The others were strewn across the classroom, shoved under desks or hanging over the ledges of open windows, all unconscious. The normal kids who weren't into shipping wars, or who were just plain terrified, were bunched up in the corner of the classroom, trembling. The weirdos were still in their seats. Sasuke was still in the shadows, probably pissing himself, trying to hold himself back since it was his bestfriend-rival-soulmate-thing and girlfriend-teammate-whatever-thing that the Fanclub were talking about.

When Izuna sensed that the fighting was over, he didn't bother getting up from his seat again. He groaned. "Fifth and last of today will be the most important class of them all: The class on the Uchiha Clan. Why the fuck it's not being taught by an actual  _Uchiha_? I don't know. It'll be taught by Hashirama Senju, which would make sense considering the fact that he's irrevocably in love with my brother or some shit, if not for the fact that I, Izuna Uchiha, am here."

A girl held up the  _Naruto Databook, Third Edition_  in her hand. "If you're Izuna Uchiha aren't you supposed to be devoted and harmonious?" she asked skeptically.

Well, it was about time that his churlishness was called out.

Izuna looked very tired, which made no sense since he'd recently been sleeping for the past century or so. He walked up to her desk and somehow glared despite the fact that he had no eyes. "I have no fucking eyes," he said. "There's a bleeding gash in my side. It's dripping down my whitie tighties as we speak."

The girl sunk into her desk, eyes tearing up. What did she care about his stinky underwear…?

"Listen." He tried to tower over her, as lofty as a 5'7" tree. She had to be like 6'4", she was so tall. She dubiously looked him up and down for a second, before they met eyes-bandages again. "I'm less developed in this series than a fetus in its mother's womb," Izuna said, "so I'd think I'm entitled to any personality I so choose to have. You wouldn't know the difference anyway, as the amount of lines I have in this series can be counted on one hand—one finger being dedicated to me warning my brother against the Senju, which he didn't heed, and now my clan is ding dong  _dead_."

Izuna was composed, more or less, but the girl sniffed in dismay. He didn't have to be so mean, jeez.

"The only one left is a rip-off of me, since I was born first—or it might be that I'm a rip-off of  _him_ , since he was created first, which would further stress the point that I have no purpose. And I'm fucking  _blind_." He pointed at the bandages on his face and then just absolutely fucking snapped.

The class started pulling out their cellphones to immortalize this epic moment on all their social media. Sasuke would have done so too, from the shadows where he hid, but he had a flip phone that couldn't record for shit. It's what he deserved.

" _I have a right to be mad_!" Izuna yelled dramatically, letting the papers go loose and pointing at her angrily. "My eyes were implanted into some shit named Nagato and he used them, used  _my_  eyes, to revive the village that has embedded itself balls deep in the overall destruction of my clan, fucking it over  _completely_! Your shitty Leaf Village  _deserved_  to burn.  _My_  eyes that I gave to  _my_  brother revived it instead, what the hell? How did they end up in an Uzumaki?  _I don't even like the Uzumaki Clan_ , what the absolute FUCK!"

"Uh… you're blind, we get it. Chill." The girl frowned. Why were his empty eyeball sockets more important to him than the bleeding side that killed him? Maybe it was an Uchiha thing.

Izuna grabbed for her.

The door slid open and a vaudeville hook sped in to snatch him away.

He kicked aggressively but couldn't get away, though a designer sandal did fly off his foot from the wild flailing. He probably looked like a squirming roach, which was embarrassing, but he'd started to look uncool and sully the association of attractiveness that went with his clan's name awhile ago. No one ever did associate the Uchiha Clan with sanity, though, so that wasn't lost since it'd never even been there in the first place, which was nice.

"LET GO!" he shouted.

The hook didn't listen, decidedly favoring tightening its hold on Izuna's bleeding waist and pulling harder.

_Is this fucking Mokuton?_  Izuna thought in fury. He grabbed onto the girl's desk (she'd been sitting at the front) and looked right at her, except he didn't have any eyes, so the best intimidation factor that he had was his breath, which smelt like watermelon. He breathed in her face. "I'm only devoted to my  _clan_. I'm only harmonious with my  _brother_! THE REST OF YOU CAN  _CHOKE_!"

And he was dragged away.

* * *

**Preview: Chapter 2 — _Main and Exceedingly Relevant Characters: The People's Favorite!_**

_Mokuton was a gift. It had many uses, ranging from murdering other human beings for pay, to effortlessly building the infrastructures of the strongest village of all time, all the way to loud kids in class_ accidentally  _getting their hands stabbed by no less than a thousand tiny splinters,_ probably  _from holding their pencils too hard._

_He_ definitely _wasn't a closet sadist or anything. He smiled widely._

_…_

_"And yes! Even Madara! He's perfect—to_ me _, but to others, the way he's stubborn and arrogant can be considered a major flaw. There's also the fact that he's sexist and egoistic, which is probably why he lived to be like a hundred but still died a virgin, so—"_

_"Wait, what?"_

_"He died a virgin?"_

_"What about Itachi, is_ he  _flawed?" This new question was asked by someone with a dark voice. Hashirama saw what_ looked  _like a small-lipped version of Izuna Uchiha under a pathetically thin Transformation Technique, but because he didn't discriminate, he ignored it and let—was it_ Sasuke _? sit among the high school girls of the Itachi Fanclub and learn the goods too._

…

_A deadpan look swept across Hashirama's face, and then he hid himself behind the desk in a fetal position. "Why do people who know the series better than me even come here?" he moaned._

 


	2. Main and Exceedingly Relevant Characters: The People's Favorite!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ok so I love Itachi, he's my favorite character. it's pretty mainstream, sure—and I'll admit it, maybe he's kinda sorta overrated but just that's how it be when you're just the baddest binch alive! (or dead, whatever.) so he can't help it! (anime characters are caught in the recesses of space and time. he's alive as long as I'm not reading the chapters where he's dead yet. Itachi Uchiha, he's THAT binch! (I'm sorry.))
> 
> because Koharu and Hamura and canonically weak geezers who survived that long off of pure luck (and off of being Danzo's yes-men) it's logical to assume that Hashirama is terrible at teaching groups of children and also it's canon that he literally only focused on Hiruzen anyway. he's kind of got a one-track mind, yes? but he's a child himself—on the inside!—so understandable.

  **Main and Exceedingly Relevant Characters: The People's Favorite!**

Hashirama Senju strode up to the desk, adjusting his suit and tie charmingly because tweed was comfortable, because he was a charmer by heart, and because he was just  _awesome_ by nature—and also really wished he had clothes like this during  _his_  time because, honestly, he'd have stunted on them all. Truly. He grinned and it looked incredible.

It was his time to shine. Again. At first, he was kind of upset at having to wait until the custodians finished cleaning the mess (eggs and toilet paper) that  _someone_  had let happen in the classroom, but now he had a bottle of booze in one hand and fat blunt in the other—and was totally over it. He was gonna have a great time.

The custodians finished fairly quickly because  _custodians_  was actually just a very irate Tobirama who was good at water tricks.

"Don't let it happen again," he groused, passing by Hashirama on his way out. He mumbled as he opened the door: "Useless Uchihas always causing problems. That's why they all smell like moldy dango and rotten eggs." (Which was a lie, but Tobirama was ingeniously innovative with his insults. And honesty wasn't necessarily essential when it came to slander.) "It's no wonder that dumbass let this happen, it's what he's  _used_  to." The mumbles faded when Hashirama gave him a  _look_ , but then he snatched the bottle of sake Hashirama had taken into the classroom, but the bottle didn't even matter anymore because it was already half-empty and Hashirama was already cheerily buzzed.

 _To drink before while teaching children—_ leave it to the idiot with the biggest mouth but the smallest brain in the room. "Tch." Tobirama shook his head and swiped away the blunt too. Then he headed out.

Hashirama clapped him on the back as a bid goodbye, laughing in good nature. His guffaws were the only sound in the room because the students were silent in esteem and wonder for and of the  _First Hokage_ ,  _God of Shinobi_ ,  _Baddest of all Bitches_ ,  _Hashirama_   _Senju_.

He was just  _fabulous_  in general. Ever since he grew his hair out, life had started working wonders for him.

He fixed up his suit and tie one more time, before picking up a teacher's pointer from the desk and extending it to its full length. Hashirama tapped the board where his name was still displayed on the overhead:

_Main and Exceedingly Relevant Characters — Hashirama Senju._

"My name is Hashirama Senju, and I'll be teaching you about the main and exceedingly relevant characters!"

One girl swooned and fainted. The rest of the class clapped enthusiastically.  _God_ , it was so  _good_  to be alive!

"There are three main characters in the original  _Naruto._  Post-timeskip, otherwise known as  _Naruto Shippuden_ , has like a gazillion. Therefore, for the sake of time, we'll only be covering the initial three main characters—Naruto Uzumaki, Sasuke Uchiha, and Sakura Haruno—as well as a few others," he explained, waving around his pointer. "Now, what does it mean to be exceedingly relevant as a character?"

A boy who looked sickly raised his hand, sniffing. He vaguely smelled like pee.

Hashirama blinked. Did Izuna scare the crap out the them or something? "Yes?"

"To be exceedingly relevant is…" He sniffed, wiping his nose. "To be a part of th…the endgame ships?"

"Not necessarily," hummed Hashirama, scratching his chin. "In this context, it means to have changed the tides of the series on multiple occasions, but especially with regard to the main characters—excluding everything that happened the Uchiha Clan in general, because that subject has a class of their own. We've made an exception for Itachi Uchiha, though, because not only does he specifically affect Sasuke Uchiha, but he uniquely affects Naruto Uzumaki as well. His reasons and goals can be considered unrelated to the rest of his clan, so he's another story completely; he'll be included in this class's lesson."

The sniffing boy sunk into his seat with a breath of relief. Izuna definitely scared the piss out of them.

"The second exceedingly relevant character to be addressed today is Hinata Hyūga; she didn't start out as a h…" Hashirama trailed off confusedly when there were a lot of mixed reactions at Hinata's name.

Most of the shippers of the Naruto Fanclub were still strewn across the room unconscious, but a few were stirring, so all who were now awake enough to scream made sure to bellow out the loudest series of jeers that Hashirama had ever heard. Half of the third portion who had been terrified by the violence shown by the NaruSakus and NaruSasus—well, they must've been NaruHinas. They cheered loudly for their queen.

Hashirama cleared his throat irately. (And fabulously.) He'd been warned against just knocking them all the hell out with the pressure of his chakra. Dammit.

The jeering and cheering continued.

He cleared his throat again.  _Give me attention, I'm Hashirama Senju! In the flesh! Back and at 'em! Jeez!_

Some girl was reaching for a hidden roll of toilet paper. The rest started wielding their writing utensils as if they were battle weapons.

Hashirama's eyelid twitched. (Fabulously.) He didn't clear his throat a third time.

Mokuton was a gift. It had many uses, ranging from murdering other human beings for pay, to effortlessly building the infrastructures of the strongest village of all time, all the way to loud kids in class  _accidentally_  getting their hands stabbed by no less than a thousand tiny splinters,  _probably_  from holding their pencils too hard.

He  _definitely_  wasn't a closet sadist. He smiled widely. The better half of class was now moaning and groaning in pain, but that's just how it is on this bitch of an Earth sometimes! So he didn't care too much. Not that he was the cause of it or anything. Hehe.

Hands on hips, Hashirama looked down at the seated class. "As I was saying! Hinata Hyūga doesn't start out a heroine, no, but was belatedly made into one by our lord and creator, Masashi Kishimoto. Even if you find it disagreeable, it's still a canon fact so I still have a responsibility to address it. She is an exceedingly relevant character," he explained, walking forward. The smell of weed wafted off of him like a perfume and the kids up front wrinkled their noses, so then he hurriedly backed up, laughing nervously. "Ahaha… So, that makes Team 7 and a few others: Our main and exceedingly relevant characters! But first off, I'm going to be addressing the people's favorite. Do you know who that is?" he asked cheerily.

The class roared. "NARUTO UZUMAKI!"

Hashirama burst into delighted laughter. An enthusiastic class was always good fun! "Oh, hell no," he chirped. "It most definitely is Itachi Uchiha."

The Itachi Fanclub wore their cloaks proudly, brushing off nonexistent dust and straightening out the wrinkles that weren't there. (There were tight regulations on the Club's dress code.)

"He's popular to the point that a lot of people consider him overrated!" said Hashirama, picking up the clipboard from the desk. "But before we go into that, let's first go into his story in general. He's loved because he's well-rounded. Flawed. And also because you all have a knack for characters who fight from their heart's desires, whether they win or lose." He flashed a proud smile. He always knew the Uchiha Clan had it in them to be good! He always  _knew_  the 'Curse of Hatred' or whatever was all a load of shit!

And here Itachi was, proving him right!  _Nice_!

The class was listening attentively, taking notes. One boy had a tape recorder on his desk, and was just like sitting there staring dreamily at him. When Hashirama noticed and waved back, the boy passed out. Luckily, the tape recorder was still running.

If Hashirama was anyone else (and wasn't able to listen to his own wonderfully chocolaty mocha voice every time he spoke) he too would probably have to use a tape recorder. This was just the way it had to be.

But anyway, back on topic: "The People like determined characters," he said. "Just look at Lee! Didn't win even  _one_  fight, but he won all our hearts. All of the characters have flaws. For characters that fail or die as a result of this, those flaws are  _fatal flaws_. Itachi h—"

"Even Madara?" asked a girl from the back. "He was really strong! It took an alien woman with no backstory to beat him! It was almost as if Kishimoto had no clue how to take him down, even though I'm the m—…even though there already was a main character! Did Madara have a flaw?" Her rambling was off subject, but because the subject was (Madara Uchiha) something Hashirama always took particular interest in, she wasn't chastised for interrupting.

"Hm," Hashirama slowly hummed, squinting at the blond with pigtails and whiskers on her cheeks. Something was weird about her…

The girl started sweating bullets.

Hashirama grinned. "Your hair is pretty."

She beamed. "Ehehe… Thanks!"

"And yes! Even Madara! He's perfect—to  _me_ , but to others, the way he's stubborn and arrogant can be considered a major flaw. There's also the fact that he's sexist and egoistic, which is probably why he lived to be like a hundred but still died a virgin, so—"

"Wait, what?"

"He died a virgin?"

"What about Itachi, is  _he_  flawed?" This new question was asked by someone with a dark voice. Hashirama saw what looked like a small-lipped version of Izuna Uchiha under a pathetically thin Transformation Technique, but because he didn't discriminate, he ignored it and let—was it  _Sasuke_? sit among the high school girls of the Itachi Fanclub and learn the goods too.

"Yes, and very much so," Hashirama chirped, lifting a finger. "Itachi Uchiha is flawed, but that's not to say that he's  _underdeveloped_. Rather, it's what makes him human. Like I said. Humans—and well rounded-characters—are complex beings with both good and bad qualities."

The class nodded sagely. They were so cute! If he wasn't raised to be a professional murderer/clan leader/village leader, Hashirama would totally become an academy teacher!

"So I emailed you all to write reports on Itachi Uchiha before today's lesson but, as it seems, only a few of you bother checking your emails. It's a shame because I attached a link to the best plugs from Konohagakūre, but suit yourselves. Don't ask me for trees if you need any, I won't grow it for you. I'll be reading a submission of one of our very own students! Lang Noi!"

'Lang Noi' was a lone figure hiding in a large trench coat at the back if the class. She lifted a hand dramatically, like Dracula slowly rising from the graveyard, in greeting. The class roared.

Hashirama sweat-dropped in that iconic anime way that he was wont to do, and read off the clipboard:  _"Itachi is a pacifist and hates violence and killing because his deadbeat father once took him out to see a war when he was only four years old. But because he's been groomed/raised (by that piece of shit Danzo)"—_ He stuttered here, obviously uncomfortable with calling Danzo a piece of shit despite the way the class was nodding booing in affirmation— _"to believe that pushing aside your emotions for the sake of your mission is most important, he often finds himself being forced to ignore these values."_

Hashirama Senju glanced up from the paper at was met with cheers. Someone had brought a bottle of booze and they were having a toast to Lang Noi's paper. He was getting a headache. He'd be sure to snatch that later.

Wasn't it all a matter of opinion? He liked his cute little student Danzo…

The report continued,  _"This fills him with guilt and self-hatred that I infer is what eventually deteriorated his heath; he's negligent with his own eyes and inadvertently considers himself a dead man."_  Hashirama nodded and flipped the page over to read the other side. There were sniffling girls in the front of the class. Sasuke was also sniffling.  _"He can be temperamental and dislikes being disrespected, but he hides this behind a cover of patience as well because he is, in fact, a model shinobi. He's very critical of himself and is very accepting of others. (Probably is a virgin though, halfway because he's so critical of himself, and one-fourth because his forehead is fucking gargantuan without his headband, and the other forth because he'd cough up a blood river and drop dead during sex anyway.) He's very attractive—if you ignore the forehead—and he's well aware of this but doesn't act on it. He's sexy. Furthermore, although he's accepting of others with all their flaws, he's very_ aware _of their flaws and thereby underestimates their capacities. Unfortunately, this makes him very stubborn and self-reliant. He doesn't trust what others can do and tries to oversee/shoulder everything. His good points are that he's loyal and does have morals (even if he ends up not following them enough), and the fact that he's attractive. Tall, dark, and handsome. He also can make swell but mildly snarky jokes and puns. Basically, he's a nice guy._

_Lang Noi."  
_

Hashirama beamed.

The class cheered very loudly. So much that the windows shook. The Itachi Fanclub were passing out fliers in the back, quickly recruiting members. A few girls had diagonal stress lines painted on their faces in black ink. A couple were passing around Akatsuki cloaks. All in all, it was pretty rad.

Hashirama took the papers off the clipboard to pull up on the overhead, showing the class as he circled the sentence fragment:  _Although he's accepting of others with all their flaws, he's very aware of their flaws and thereby underestimates their capacities_. Beside it, in bright green ink, he wrote the words  _NICE JOB!_  in all caps with no less than twenty exclamation points, and then adorned them with pretty green hearts and stars.

Hashirama stepped back to admire his flowery handwriting for a second, before booming, "This is Itachi's flaw, his  _fatal_  flaw! If this fallacy was amended early on, he'd definitely still be alive."

"Why is it a fatal flaw to not be blind?" Sasuke in Transformation Technique snapped from the crowd.

Hashirama glanced at his name tag. "Because, dear Sasuko-chan, it's made him hard-headed to the point where it isn't determination, it's just plain old stubbornness." He reached down to circle another sentence fragment: " _this makes him very stubborn and self-reliant. He doesn't trust what others can do and tries to oversee/shoulder everything._ "

A girl raised her hand from the back.

Hashirama glanced at her name tag. Peccolia. "Yes?" he asked.

She adjusted her 99 cent fur coat and slid down her Versace shades so he could look her in the piercing eye. "A ninja is rightfully cautious of others. Because he wasn't loyal to the Akatsuki and didn't support their goals, he had no one he could trust after he fled the village, correct?"

Hashirama blinked but didn't answer, waiting for her to continue. He traced circles into his clipboard with the back of his pen.

"Couldn't his fatal flaw also be the fact that Itachi's guilt and stress was to the point that he was essentially half-dead?" she asked. The corner of a scholarship in the field of  _Naruto_  peeked out of her pocket. "That's purely physical. Coughing up blood, slowly blinding, and all the rest. He couldn't use his own eyes to their full potential without direly risking his entire life—which he eventually did, and died of."

"I, uh…"

"You, um?" she prompted.

A deadpan look swept across Hashirama's face, and then he hid himself behind the desk in a fetal position. "Why do people who know the series better than me even come here?" he moaned.

Peccolia crossed her legs on the desk, and the sunlight filtering in through the windows shined on her golden Gucci Dionysus Jodhpur Boots. She used one hand to neatly fold the scholarship in her pocket and gently shove it deeper in her pocket, feigning innocence.

When Hashirama eventually realized that he didn't look fabulous enough from on the floor behind the desk, he rose from behind it. "Well, yes," he coughed, nodding thoughtfully, "but it's implied in the text that Itachi is sick because of his guilty conscious. The heart is a powerful thing! But even then, he wouldn't be caught up in such guilt of everything he may have helped destroy if he didn't try to shoulder it all alone in the first place." Hashirama scrawled on his clipboard to make himself seem smart, but really he was just drawing a picture of Itachi's mangekyo. Except he didn't know what Itachi's looked like, so it slowly turned into Madara's, which led him to straight up drawing Madara's face on the wooden clipboard. "Conclusively, like all the Uchihas—well, more or less—Itachi died because of his fatal flaw. But then he was revived and allowed to apologize and change his ways from beyond the grave, which was cool." Hashirama flashed a bright grin and a thumbs up.

The class cheered loudly, except for Sasuke, who looked to have started silently fuming over something. Hashirama ignored it for the most part because (1) he had a class to teach and (2) there was nothing too spectacular about a lesson about Itachi when he  _could've_  led a lesson on Madara. (Nothing spectacular aside from the fact that he, Hashirama Senju, was the one teaching it, of course. Heh.)

"A lot of characters were able to do that, actually! That's why people like Hiruzen, who made a lot of bad mistakes, can find themselves forgiven by the fans of this series even if for the simple fact that he acknowledged his faults and apologized. Acknowledging one's mistakes makes for a great man!" Hashirama proclaimed. "It's also the difference between characters that find forgiveness from the fans and Tobirama. My sweet little brother's kind of hard-headed too, ahahaha!"

Sasuke squinted. "Who exactly forgave Hiruzen?"

"Me." Hashirama squinted back.

The whiskered blond with pigtails from before had also been raising her hand, but when Sasuke turned his narrowed gaze to her, both hands flew back to her lap and she whistled innocently.  _Me!—_ she probably silently said in her mind. Hashirama was good at reading people.

He tapped the overhead screen with his pointer again, circling the name  _Itachi_  a few times to get the class back on subject. (Everyone had already been paying attention to him, it was only Sasuke who was a rebel child. If not for Hashirama's quixotic favor for the Uchiha Clan, he would've already have kicked him out three interruptions ago. (At the first one.)) "Itachi's flaws came back to bite him in the ass multiple times," said Hashirama, "but we have to address the fact that he was  _groomed_  into the mindset that created those flaws. As a prodigy ninja, everyone's expectations of him were especially lofty. Only his best friend, Shisui Uchiha, was there to share his hardships… until he  _wasn't_ , thanks to Death—which is shorthand for Danzo."

The class booed.

Hashirama hung his head, resigned to the fact that Danzo was ruined. "Itachi was unable to confide in anyone pertinent to the coup d'état except for Danzo and the Hokage—and he had no one he could confide to about  _anything_  relevant in his life, because no one could relate to him. Only Shisui was there, and after Shisui died,  _then_  he was alone. People unrelated to his clan—his genin team, his teachers, Kakashi and his other comrades in ANBU, and the others—they  _couldn't_  be trusted with Uchiha Clan matters, you see. Not only would they not have been able to change very much where even Hiruzen couldn't, but the Uchiha Clan were discriminated against within the village. The village's would've been to annihilate 'the traitors' altogether, instead of giving them justice. It wouldn't be a stretch to that they… they  _wanted_  them gone." Hashirama furrowed his brows, eyes falling to the tile floor.

From within the crowd, a whiskered blond with pigtails grit her teeth.

"Only the leaders of the village would've been able to act from outside the clan… which they failed to do." Hashirama clenched his fists with a dismayed look on his face.

Silence. The temperature dropped to arctic degrees.

The clipboard in his hand cracked and broke, hitting the floor with a loud  _clank!_  that echoed across room.

He had created a village where the Senjus and Uchihas could live together, in harmony. But instead of living together as one, the Uchiha Clan was wiped out by a system set against them—one created almost promptly after his death. Had Madara been right about it? About the warning he'd given his clan before he left? Hashirama didn't know anymore…

A boy sniffled from the back of the classroom. Then a girl near the front started sniveling too. The Itachi Fanclub began passing around a box of tissues around among the members. Even members of the Naruto Fanclub, with their leftover toilet paper, started wiping their tears. One girl broke down sobbing.

The moment of silence was over when Hashirama spoke again, voice heavy. "Itachi had a mighty dilemma. To him, it was unavoidable that he would shoulder the burdens on his own, but as one thing snowballed into another, he inadvertently lost  _everyone_  he could trust. More frankly, they all died—and the ones who didn't die? Well, he was dead to  _them_. They thought he was a traitor. He couldn't confide in anyone about his sickness, and couldn't seek out help for his eyes. As a pacifist, killing his clan, this also tore him apart—so much that he decided he didn't even deserve to live, which I guess he didn't but…" Hashirama scratched his chin. "Hm. Setting aside whether he deserved to die for being a murderer or not when  _all_ ninjas are murderers, the point is that he wouldn't be dead if he hadn't tried to shoulder everything alone. Contrary to what one might think, he  _did_ still have people who'd care for him or help him, even before knowing that he'd only killed his clan to protect his village and only left his village to protect his brother—not that knowing that wouldn't be icing on the cake. Kisame, for example, was loyal to Itachi for being the only one to tell him, albeit a bit indirectly, that he wasn't actually a monster. But that's for another time."

Sasuke stood up so quickly that his Transformation Technique almost dissipated. "HE DESERVED TO LIVE! DANZO AND THE ELDERS— _THEY_  DESERVED TO DIE FOR TELLING HIM TO DO IT, FOR TELLING A  _CHILD_ TO—" The wood of his seat literally stretched out, wrapped around his waist, and slammed him down into a sitting position.

"Calm down, Sasuko!" Hashirama tsked. And the somber mood was broken. "You're missing the point entirely. I'm addressing his fatal flaw here! He was a child, sure, but he was a shinobi. And apparently it's our culture to think of ninjas as adults, it's been that way since  _before_  I was born! In fact, Madara and I were the first ones to think something was wrong with it! The fact of the matter is this: If Itachi hadn't tried to shoulder everything alone, trying to be the only shinobi protecting Konoha from the shadows, he wouldn't have died. The fate of the entire Uchiha Clan and all of the peace of Konohagakūre didn't have to be in one man's hands… He accepted it, though, because he had his own goals."

"Goals?" asked a student.

"Yes. You see, Itachi had his own dreams too; he had dreams for peace. Although the village  _was_  flawed at the time, and even though it still kind of is, he still saw the vision behind it," said Hashirama in a proud tone of voice. "The 'big picture', so to speak. So it was his intention to surpass the difficulties and expand anyhow, to become Hokage and fix everything not only for his clan and village, but als—"

Sasuke snapped, "Where the fuck are you getting this information?"

"Oh? So you didn't read Itachi Shinden, Sasuko!" Hashirama admonished.

" _What_?"

"The novels! They delve into all the details of what was going around through Itachi's mind. He was a child and a pacifist, and although he did think of what was best for the village, it all boiled down to him as 'endure how they're treating you so that everything stays peaceful while I work things out'. Despite myself, the First Hokage, I'll still ask you this: To ignore the systematic injustices held against you, silently suffering to prove your innocence but still being subjugated—is that true peace? Would you settle for suffering in your own village forever?"

The class was silent.

Hashirama scored the room for moment, licking his lips. (They were getting kinda dry, maybe he should end the lesson soon.) He reached in his pocket for lip balm but couldn't find any.  _Dammit_.

"Alright," he said. "You wouldn't. Itachi Uchiha was a prodigy. He was hand-picked by Danzo and lifted above the restrictions placed upon the rest of the clan; he was advocated for by Danzo and allowed to take the chūnin exams alone; he was the first Uchiha to become an ANBU." Hashirama paced the room. His voice was the only sound in the room. Even Sasuke was silent, listening and steaming. "It would make no type of sense at all if he was able to relate to his clan. The fact is—he  _wasn't_. Although he did care about them, there was no way for him to really understand the brunt of what they were going though—especially at such a young age where he hadn't witnessed the discrimination like they did—not when he didn't have to go through it too. So to want them to wait it out while he got the job done, getting stronger and becoming Hokage to try and bring conflict to a full-stop, placing everything on his shoulders, wasn't the right approach. It was a childish approach, really. No one can go through everything alone." He stopped his pacing and faced the class.

"But what about that whole  _a nameless shinobi who protects peace within its_ _shadows_  thing?" a girl asked.

"No one said the nameless shinobi had to be alone." Hashirama tsked. "And protecting peace from within the shadows doesn't necessarily mean killing your clan. I'm of the opinion that Itachi misinterpreted that quote. Although he had good intentions and was able to fix a things when he was revived, he did mess up big time too. However, he was an innovative genius, learning better as he got older and taking precaution to make sure whatever was most important to him was well-protected even after he died. His love for his brother and village is what made him take on such a heavy task. He didn't want them to suffer and, as you know, it's the heart that counts the most in this series. He did well enough. He ended up being the one to save his brother, his village, and the world at large." Hashirama smiled thoughtfully at the ceiling as he spoke. As irrationally emotional as the Uchiha were considered, they certainly had the passion to back it. Itachi Uchiha was a true shinobi and a real man, and Hashirama was proud of him. "Ahahaha! All's well that end's well, right? The village turned out fine in the end and—"

"It was  _shoved_  into his hands!" yelled a man. He had a full beard, what the hell was he doing in a high school class? "He didn't want that fate! He didn't choose it himself!"

Peccolia frowned from her seat. "It was offered to him, and he took it," she retorted. "He was soft on his brother and it led him to betraying his clan for the sake of a village that had oppressed them, and had plans to oppress them forever. Itachi was at fault for that, but the Village is even more at fault for pushing this on both him and his clan. The end wasn't even  _good_  enough to justify the means, because the Ninja World still descended into war in the end anyway—like Itachi had been afraid of, because he thought it'd scar 'innocent' Sasuke." She slid her Versace shades up her forehead. "If you ask me, it'd have been more beneficial to everyone if the Uchiha Clan had just usurped and regained justice by force—because it was  _their_  village, along with the Senju Clan's, in the first place. What right did a Shimura and a Sarutobi have to order for their deaths?"

"Wait a minute… SHE'S RIGHT!"

"YEAH!"

"THE VILLAGE WASN'T EVEN MADE FOR THEM IN THE FIRST PLACE!"

"IT WAS  _FUCKING_ DANZO'S FAULT FROM THE BEGINNING!"

The class descended into pandemonium, the vast majority of the Itachi Fanclub agreeing with that rhetoric, the Naruto Fanclub set against them, and the undecided people beginning to cry in panic because they didn't want to be hit with awry eggs again if this escalated—which it was doing rather quickly.

Hashirama tried to calm the class with little success. "Hey, hey! No, going against the village would  _not_  have been the way to go! None of you are thinking about what Obito would've done if that happened! The village would've been in civil war and he'd jump the chance to lead the world into a Fourth Ninja War where Naruto  _wasn't_  super-powered and able to defend himself, where Orochimaru  _hadn't_  become relatively good again, and where none of the Five Great Villages would've allied themselves against a common enemy! The entire  _world_  would've been broken to shambles! And this isn't a class on the Uchiha Clan  _or_  the world, this is about Itachi!  _Just_  Itachi!"

A girl in the Itachi Fanclub threw an egg at Hashirama—which he dodged, immediately clapping his hands into the serpent hand-seal to grow a wooden dragon from her seat—screaming, "WE WOULDN'T  _NEED_  OROCHIMARU, WE'D STILL HAVE JIRAIYA AT THAT POINT!" And then she was silenced when her chair-turned-dragon swallowed her whole and threw her across the room.  _How dare she almost get egg on his fabulous suit!_

"If you don't have Orochimaru, then you don't have the four dead past Hokages!" Hashirama clenched his jaw in frustration as he reasoned. "No matter how you look at it, things would've gone to shit if Itachi let a war happen. And he didn't! And that was right of him, even if he went about it wrongly, because a Ninja War of that caliber at that time would've  _crushed_  all five villages in no time at all, especially once Madara was revived!"

The class wasn't listening. They were too busy looking for more eggs, but the carton of eggs that the Itachi Fanclub member had used to attack him was the only one left in the room. There were only eleven eggs left in there. Those were fucking  _battle_   _weapons_.

"I'm not saying Itachi should've stood by and did  _nothing_." Hashirama used Mokuton to pin the rest of the class to their seats. There were moans and groans of pains again, and he smiled innocently. "What I'm saying is that he shouldn't have shouldered everything alone.  _That_  was his fatal flaw as a character, and that's also why he's a  _Main and Exceedingly Relevant Character_ —because it changed the tides of this series by a landslide. As well as he made things turn out in the end, saving the world and whatnot, he still could've prevented a vast majority of the problems if he'd amended this flaw early on." Hashirama side-stepped a flying roll of toilet paper, waving his hands in panic. Tobirama was gonna  _kill_  him. "His tag-team with Sasuke is the only reason he won in the end! He acknowledged his flaw and changed himself."

Sasuke squirmed against the wood around his waist, shouts almost unheard as the bark climbed up and fought to muzzle him. "He was a child! He was forced to kill his own parents! Stop defending it!"

Hashirama laughed nervously. "Listen… life was unfortunate for everyone in this series, you know. He was thirteen, yes, but you're thinking of this on a completely different wavelength than everyone else was. Listen and understand that  _everyone_  else in this series considers a ninja as an adult. Literally every single person, like,  _all_  of them. Only Ashura's and Indra's souls—that's you and I, and Madara, and Naruto—ever thought anything was wrong with it. To Itachi, to Danzo, to Hiruzen, and to everyone else involved at the time, including your parents, he wasn't a  _child_ , it was just a regular schmegular ninja filling out his mission, so—"

"Wait, wait!" someone cried out. "Who're Sasuko-chan's parents, what're you talking about? And what do you mean by  _you_   _and I_? Why's Sasuko-chan included in the having-Ashura's-or-Indra's-soul thing?"

Sasuke stilled in his bonds and nailed him with a glare. " _Shut up!"_  — his eyes said.

Hashirama couldn't read eyes. "Because he does?" he replied, confused.

" _He_? Who's  _he_?"

"This kid tied up?"

"But that's Sasuko-chan, right?"

"What the hell are you talking abou— _ohh_ …" said Hashirama, just now remembering that this Small-Lipped Izuna was still under disguise. "Uh. Anyway lesson's over."

"…"

"…"

"IS THAT  _SASUKE_?"

"SASUKE, CAN I HAVE YOUR AUTOGRAPH?"

"WERE YOU LEFT-HANDED? CAN YOU WRITE ANYMORE?"

"CAN YOU FORGE ITACHI'S AUTOGRAPH? SINCE YOU HAVE THE SAME FLESH AND BLOOD OR WHATEVER!"

Muffled yelling answered them, before Sasuke seemingly realized how uncool he looked at that moment and settled for silently glaring at everyone in the room. (Particularly at the whiskered blond with pigtails, who kept snickering and taking pictures with her iPhone 8 Plus.) His mouth had successfully been covered by the bark but his right arm was still free to give autographs if he wanted to—but honestly it was kind of looking like he wasn't very in the mood. But his Transformation Technique was still up, and that was a wonderful testament to how good of a shinobi he was.

The situation was averted. There was only one cracked egg on the overhead screen, a few rolls of toilet paper unfurled all over the seats, and a class of lovely and enthusiastic children lionizing an Uchiha. For the most part, this lesson was a success.  _Nice!_

"AHAHAHAHA!" Hashirama laughed in good nature, as he made his way out slowly, charmingly, and fabulously in his black tweed suit with the green boutonnière.

* * *

**Preview: Chapter 3 — _Flaws pertinent to the endgame: Themes!_**

_"Romance? Get over yourselves." For someone so  noncommittal, a scoff and an eye-roll was enough to wow everybody. Tobirama leaned back onto the desk, rolling his eyes a second time for good measure, just to show how silly of a question that was._

_(The class gasped in awe.)_

_…_

_"Understand that_ Naruto _and_ Naruto Shippuden _had a number of commendable motifs: Friendship, loyalty, and found family; never being alone; never giving up; embracing your true self; empathy."_

_The class had only begun to cheer when his chakra spiked and the overhead screen imploded into shreds of paper like confetti, drifting to the floorboards and all over their faces._

_He glared at the trembling teens. "The epilogue made sure to grind all those burdens into_ dust _."_

_…_

_"When I find out who keeps bringing eggs in here, you're getting expelled."_

_Naruto hid a carton behind his back. Uh, not because it had eggs in there or anything. He was just, like, scratching his back with it or something… Anyway he pressed the carton too hard and suddenly yolk was dripping down his spine. He looked up and saw Tobirama's red eyes pinned on him. "Shit."_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tell me what you think of the meta! like, the info presented—do you agree or nah?
> 
> Itachi Shinden: Book of Bright Light and Itachi Shinden: Book of Dark Night was a huge ref! ahaha but I wouldn't really recommend basing the Facts(TM) off the anime adaptation of it if you're looking to confirm what BS you may or may not think I put in here, but there are lots of resources where you can find out more about it—like the wikia, or on forums, or ranting people who post screenshots on social media. or just buying the book. if you're that pressed. (I, too, am that pressed.)
> 
> (Danzo canonically has stinky breath sjkldakldasklas)
> 
> Lang Noi is the amazing author of Catch Your Breath! It's a great story and I recommend it! Peccolia is the wonderful writer of Laterality, a personal favorite, and The Legend of Three Leaves! Go read them, please! they're GREAT!

**Author's Note:**

> Is there any character or content you're looking forward to seeing covered?
> 
> Erratic Updates! Even though, as you can see, I may or may not have a lot more written, this is still super low priority. Since it's meta we're talking, I need to take the actual information presented a bit seriously, yes? Following the schedule presented by Izuna, this will be something like seven to nine chapters, maybe give a few, take none. Flame me if you want, it's true, I'm wilding. Nice reviews are appreciated more, though! Thanks for reading!
> 
> Cheers!
> 
> (*I'm not an anti-SasuSaku/NaruHina, and I love all four characters involved in the ships (and am mildly fond of the three brought about my them) but the flaws in them are seriously going to get castigated.)


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